Jake's field report "Imakatsu Metal Craw" Oct 7, 2017

Overview

The Imakatsu Metal Craw Spin is an out of the box lure. At first glance, it looks like a very limited situational lure, but that is far from this lure’s potential. There is so many ways to fish this lure in which you would fish other traditionally lures so it is something the bass are unpressured too. Imakatsu offered the metal craw spin in 7g, 9g, 10g, 11g, 13g, 17g. The small body of this lure came through cover very well. What I really was impressed with was if grass got stuck on the lure I could clear the bait by two hard rod snaps and continue my retrieve. Despite being able to catch fish all year with this lure I think it will shine during the cold-water months.  The spinner blades give subtle vibrations and flash that is perfect for the cold-water months because the bass do not want something too flashy or too much movement.

Rigging

The hardware for this comes on all the Imakatsu lures are very good.  There are a few ways to customize this lure. To give the full body craw look you can cut the front arms from a 3” elite craw and add it to the front hook so it has a full craw profile.

Testing

I wanted to test this lure somewhere with clear water so there is more of a chance for fish to see this bait since it is very subtle. The best place that came to mind was a clear water quarry in crystal lake named Three Oaks. I have done some fishing here before and know there is some bigger fish in this lake. I was shore fishing today since I only had two hours to fish. Usually on the shore there is 5-10 feet of gravel between the water’s edge and cat tails. We recently had a very large rain fall the water was all the away up to the cat tails. The wind pushed dead grass against the cat tails so there was cover 3 feet out from the cat tails. I had a feeling there would be fish would be pushed up under the cover.

I thought this was perfect to test the Metal Craw Spin. I would parallel cast against the cover and let the lure drop to the bottom. When I would retrieve this lure, I would lift the rod tip up 2-3 feet. I wouldn’t snap the rod suddenly it was a slow easy lift of the rod just to lift off the bottom and have the blades spin. The fish seemed inactive so I didn’t want to move the lure too fast.  This bass came out from under the cover and hit the lure mid rod lift. Since most of the bites are on slack line you don’t feel too much of a bite. The best advice for detecting a bite is when you feel pressure on your lure like it is covered in weeds, set the hook.

Equipment

Since the bite is very subtle you need a very sensitive rod to detect the bite. My rod of choice is a 6’6” Daiwa Zillion medium fast action. I chose a medium rod because it is a lighter rod and you do not want to overpower the lure. The fast action was the action of choice so if I needed to snap the lure quickly I had the ability to also if I get grass on my lure I could give two sharp rod snaps and clear the lure very easy. My reel of choice was a Daiwa Zillion SV in 6:3:1. I didn’t want to fast of a gear ratio so I didn’t move the lure too quickly or lifted it off the bottom when I didn’t want to because in was bringing in too much line when I would reel. Finally, my line of choice was Toray Exthread in 10-pound test. Exthread is the best and most durable fluorocarbon I have ever thrown. 10 pounds seemed like the best choice because like with the rod power I didn’t want to overpower the lure and the lighter line gave me a better feel.

 –Jake Gaston